O Mirtillo! you’re above me;
I respect but dare not love ye.
She who hears, inclines to sin,
Who parleys half gives up the town,
And ravenous love soon enters in.
When once the out-work’s beaten down:
Then my sighs and tears won’t move ye,
No Mirtillo, you’re above me;
I respect but dare not love ye.

Could this lovely, charming maid
Think Mirtillo would deceive her?
Could Corinna be afraid
She by him should be betray’d?
No, too well I love her,
Therefore cannot be above her.
O let love with love be paid.
My heart, my life, my all I give her.
Let me now receive her.

Oh! how gladly we believe,
When the heart is too, too willing;
Can that look, that face deceive?
Can he take delight in killing?
Ah!, I die if you deceive me.
Yet I will believe ye.

Thomas Betterton (1635-1710)

But, oh, alas, with weeping eyes,
And bleeding heart I lie,
Thinking on her whose absence ’tis
That makes me wish to die.

Thomas Betterton (1635-1710)

I will love more than man e’er loved before me,
Gaze on her all the day and melt all the night,
Till for her own sake at last she’ll implore me
To love her less to preserve our delight.

Since gods themselves could not ever be loving,
Men must have breathing recruits for new joys;
I wish my love could be ever improving,
Though eager love more than sorrow destroys.

In fair Aurelia’s arms leave me expiring,
To be embalm’d by the sweets of her breath;
To the last moment I’ll still be desiring;
Never had hero so glorious a death.

Thomas Betterton (1635-1710)

Thomas Betterton (1635-1710)